English project. Internacional Desserts

At our children’s English school, the teacher has asked them to research an international dessert and find a recipe for it, so they can present it in English with a short oral presentation.

Álvar and Martín, who love making posters, set about researching their chosen desserts—tiramisu and apple pie—the very same day the project was set. 

They looked for information in English, selected photos, and today they have already designed the poster and handwritten all the content.

We have also practised the oral presentation, because all this preparation and work helps them gain fluency and confidence in communicating.

Here the posters:

I love seeing my children’s progress in their second language. It is now that we are beginning to see how all the effort in terms of time and money, put into ensuring they progress without fear and, above all, that they enjoy learning a language, is starting to bear fruit.

Anyone who thinks a language can be learnt solely through three hours of lessons at school and by following a textbook… I think they are very much mistaken…

REVIEW "IRREGULAR VERBS" WITH KAHOOT

The importance to learn at home and memorise irregular verbs.

In English, the simple past tense is formed by adding -ed to the end of the regular verbs. If only all past verbs were that easy!.

The problem for English language learners is the many, many changes that occur when forming the past tense of irregular verbs.

Sometimes the vowel changes (come → came), sometimes the pronunciation changes (read → read), and sometimes the whole word changes (eat → ate). Sometimes there seems to be a pattern (throw → threw, know → knew), but there are always exceptions (snow → snowed).

Learning irregular verbs might seem like a bit of a "brain workout," but they are actually the VIPs of the English language. Most of the words we use to describe our daily lives—like what we ate for breakfast, what we saw at the park, or where we went over the weekend—don't follow the "add -ed" rule.

 If you only use the regular rules, you might end up saying things like "I eated" or "I goed," which sounds a bit like a tiny toddler talking! By mastering these special verbs, you’ll be able to tell your stories clearly and sound much more natural and confident when speaking with friends.

We’re lucky that our two children have been learning verbs for over two years now at the English school they attend (INFIL). I can’t thank them enough for all their hard work.

They were introduced to the list two years ago, memorised it and really got to grips with it thanks to the board games I designed. Now we’re consolidating what they’ve learnt, and I decided to try a Kahoot at home... and it’s been brilliant!

What is it about this app that they like so much?

I’ll keep adding more verbs to this Kahoot, to see if we can get 100% correct answers.

MY KAHOOT: https://create.kahoot.it/share/irregular-verbs-esl-k11/b6f73f4c-42af-4759-a201-cef5772095b5

Improve your english writing a poem

 

1. Use Your Demonstratives

In your poem, you can point to things that are near you or far away. Remember the rules for singular and plural:

• Near you: Use "This is" for one thing and "These are" for many.
• Far away: Use "That is" for one thing and "Those are" for many.

2. Talk About Who Owns What

You can use Possessive Pronouns to show who the objects belong to. This makes your poem sound more professional!

• Instead of saying "It is my backpack," you can say "The backpack is mine".
• Use words like yours, his, hers, ours, or theirs to describe other people's things.
• If you mention a friend's name, add an 's (e.g., "It's Jorge's skateboard").

3. Pick Your Favorite Vocabulary

Use the words from your list to describe what you have. You can group them by what you do with them:

• Things you wear: trainers, flip flops, bracelets, or a hoody.
• Things you ride: a bike, a skateboard, or an electric scooter.
• Things you use: headphones, a phone, or a speaker.

4. Add "Cool" Adjectives

Make your poem more interesting by describing the objects. Don't just say you have a phone; tell us what it's like! Use these adjectives:

• Is it expensive or cheap?
• Is it colourful or cool?
• Is it nice or horrible?

5. You can follow this simple "Rhyming Couplets"

Rhyming couplets are pairs of consecutive lines in poetry that rhyme and typically share the same meter, creating a distinct rhythm. They often feature similar line lengths and offer a complete thought or rhythmic pause at the end of the second line. Couplets are widely used in literature, including nursery rhymes, sonnets, and Shakespearean

Example Poem Structure

>>This is my backpack, it is very cool,

>> I take it with me every day to school. 

>>Those are your trainers,

>> they are colourful and blue, 

>> I think they look very nice on you! 

English expressions in a different way

 As we do every Sunday, we’re working on English. Today we’re doing a general vocabulary review and focusing on definitions to provide context for each vocabulary word and learn it consciously.

In Martín’s case, they’re working on “Our things.” It’s a very easy topic for practicing short definitions.

Specifically, we’re focusing on personal items: sneakers, sandals, backpack, cell phone, athletic shoes...

Adjectives like colorful, polka-dotted, expensive, cheap, hideous, awesome...

And as for grammar “Whose is this?”, “This is mine”...

Here’s how we work:

1) Memorize all the vocabulary.

2) Put the words into context using expressions related to the topic and grammar (“Whose is this?”, “This is mine”...).

3) Define them orally using the context of our home, our room, and our belongings.

Amidst all the activities suggested in the book, the phrase “What do you want to be when you grow up?” comes up, and we were reminded of this great video from Pop Planet.

Wild animals and Comparatives sentences

 Explanation here:

Planet Pop has  nice ressources to work this topic in a didactic and funny way.

Here the THE ANIMAL GAME

https://www.planetpop.com/shared-video?token=83dfc780-70bf-443a-903d-2d0943d482e6

LYRICS here. 

TIPS PARA TRABAJAR EL READING EN CASA

Reading comprehension involves decoding, processing and understanding the words within a text. This is critical to the development of a learner’s literacy skills and vocabulary acquisition.

To develop reading comprehension in English, just as in Spanish, the key is to read and practice, gradually building up vocabulary and understanding sentence structures that allow a child to comprehend texts that should progressively increase in word count and complexity.

We appreciate our teacher for beginning to develop this skill, which is essential for helping children become more confident communicators.

We have been fostering this skill for years now using the American “read aloud” methodologies and materials from Read and Imagine, as well as other books recommended by Carly &Adams

The process we follow to train this skill is this:

STEP 1. UNDERSTAND WHAT THE TEXT IS ABOUT (Title, images, questions)

The information in the title provides clues about the text’s content.

Understand THE QUESTIONS.

WHAT--> qué

WHY --> por qué

WHEN -->cuándo

WHERE --> dónde

WHO --> quién

HOW -->cómo

STEP 2. COMPREHENSIVE READING.  (At least twice)

a.  Read and understand the general idea, noting new/unknown words.

b.  Read the questions and do a second reading to find information to answer those questions (it is helpful to underline information useful for the answer).

STEP 3. STRUCTURE THE ANSWER CORRECTLY:

SUBJECT + PREDICATE 

(Ex: LUIS LIKED FOOTBALL)

Answer in the same tense as the question; therefore, if the question is in the present tense, answer in the present tense; if it is in the past tense, answer in the past tense. Be careful with the correct use of the present tense (3rd person).

                                   PRESENT                                                   PAST

DO YOU GO….?                                                                            DID YOU GO….?

•    NO I don’t, NO She/he doesn’t                                              - NO, I didn’t

•    Yes I do; Yes she/he does                                                            - YES I did.

Aquí un ejemplo que hemos hecho en casa:

We also received a new book from Read and Imagine today, and like all their books, it’s fantastic.

This weekend we also have had to work study techniques to organize contents to study Science. We are very tired, because our school delegate too much work for home and it spent too much efforf and time

If we always read, we strong learn!

We’ve had a dreadful week working with the children at home.

I get the feeling that either they’re rushing through the work at school or the material is too scattered, which creates quite a bit of confusion for them.

For me, it’s absolutely vital that children read, write and enjoy learning. Children should want to learn, develop their creativity and curiosity, and gradually come to understand life’s challenges...

All of this goes far beyond exams... it’s primary school, not a competitive exam!

Children must learn and acquire skills, but they must also be happy and develop their interests.

My kids like to draw, to build things, to create stories, play music...and there is not too much space in school to do It..So we have to facilitate dituation at home: going to special clases, participating into special contexts or making models at home. 

We all, teachers and parents, are "in the same boat": educate our kids to be well educated and emotional enough to prepare them for life.

In our case, we emphasise daily work on what we consider to be fundamental and go beyond rote learning: language, maths and English.

Writing, reading, understanding maths problems, thinking critically, and knowing how to express themselves and relate concepts to real life... these are the areas we focus on particularly and support very specifically in their learning.

Social and Natural Sciences are more repetitive subjects, and we only teach them techniques for organising their work and study... In this case, as the standard system is repetitive and relies on rote learning... I believe parental involvement is less important.

In English, we’re really happy because we’re starting to see the fruits of years of hard work in the remarkable fluency Álvar and Mártín are showing... We’ve put a lot of time and money into supporting what they learn at school and helping them make progress in the world of the second language...

This weekend we’ve been sorting through my books and exercise books from my primary school days, and we’ve been using my 8 year EGB school books to practise reading, comprehension and discussing the vocabulary needed for the upcoming exams.

This weekend was a total game-changer because we combined traditional methods with my elementary school materials and created reading exercises using Gemini to align the vocabulary and topics with what they’re covering in school.

The truth is that artificial intelligence is very useful and has helped us a lot. And we have a thousand resources at our fingertips to support English learning from home.

Here my books from EGB

Here the reading I created with Gemini

>>link Here

The truth is, it’s a pleasure to support them with their English and see that fluency in communication that we thought would never come… but really…

it’s coming!

I encourage all families to support them, if you can, in this process… it’s a real breakthrough that takes time to arrive, but it does arrive.

And...

This week we have an important date, because Álvar and Martin were involved in a traditional drawing context in which they get used to participate...And they have got a prize!...so after all the effort, they had a reward...